


Behind This Mask

by ImaRavenclaw



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: HPFT, Hogwarts Era, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Questioning, Slug Club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 20:23:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9784829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImaRavenclaw/pseuds/ImaRavenclaw
Summary: Around Neville, Cormac McLaggen just feels himself. He doesn’t have to act so tough, or be better than everyone all of the time. If only he could actually be good-hearted around others.Neville Longbottom/Cormac McLaggenSecond entry for Lovegood27’s Random Pairing Challenge.And first entry for TreacleTart’s Take It Seriously Challenge.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Sometimes you need a challenge, so that’s what challenges are for. I apologize if this is kind of too sensitive for Cormac. He’s my least favourite character in the HP books/movies, so I kind of wanted to give him a reason for all of his bad character traits (especially in the books), because J.K. Rowling never really gave him any good qualities.
> 
> Also, there are some small mentions of PTSD close to the end, so if that would trigger you than feel free not to read the epiloguey/20 (obviously I didn’t want to add the extra months onto 19 years, or anything like that) years later sort of thing. 
> 
> And last but not least: Anything you recognize belongs to J.K. Rowling, anything else will be credited accordingly.

I don’t know how cocky became my way of life, but now I wish that I could go back and take it all away. A lot of the times I find myself a stranger in my own words, and I _try_ to be kinder, but it’s hard. Once you get used to being something you’re not it’s as if you’ve always been that person. _Who am I?_ I don’t know.

 

Sometimes I wish that I could just walk into the Great Hall and be all buddy-buddy with everyone (I mean, besides the Slytherins). I wish that I could sit and talk to _anyone_. About interesting things. No matter how many times I try to understand, I can never seem to find out how I still have things to say about myself without lying besides ‘I’m wearing red boxers today’ or ‘I’m noticing just now that it’s sunny’. Godric. How did I get to be viewed as such a narcissistic and demanding human being?

 

Wishing that I could change the way I treat people takes up a lot of my thought process. There’s a huge chance that I won’t pass my NEWTs at the end of the year. I’m definitely self-absorbed, just not in the way that people see.

 

Occasionally I wonder if everyone I am friends with is simply lying to my face about enjoying my company. I wish that the people that actually matter to me would just be honest and tell me how they _really_ feel

 

Do I really talk about myself that much?

 

_Unfortunately._

 

Another thing I think about is how much of what I say is complete bullshit. It may be honest (because honesty is one of my only good qualities) but it’s never what I want or need to say. I just wish there was someone I could confide in.

 

For one, support on changing my attitude towards people, and their opinion of me.

 

Secondly, learning to be more comfortable in my skin, and figuring out my good qualities and improving them.

 

Third and foremost (at the current time), help with whatever the bloody hell is going on my brain.

 

My Uncle Tiberius is constantly telling me that facing my thoughts head-on is the best way to get rid of them; but what exactly does he expect me to do, go around and kiss boys?

 

No way in hell.

 

 

 

*

 

 

**Method 1 - Instead of facing _specific_ thoughts head-on simply reverse the thoughts into more manageable acts. Girls. Easy - Hermione Granger.**

 

**Exactly how to piss off that twat Ron Weasley (who, though I’m making very slow efforts to become a better person, is still horrid. His sister Ginny isn’t so bad though, and I feel bad for accusing her of cheating to get her brother on the team during quidditch tryouts), and also shoo ‘boy thoughts’ from head.**

 

 

This turns out to be rather easy, as Hermione Granger is present at the first Slug Club dinner. She hates me and I can tell, so I don’t know exactly how this is going to work. I keep trying to realize that talking about myself isn’t the way to impress people, but it keeps slipping away. So there I go, as soon as Professor Slughorn asks for an update on life (or rather the interesting aspects that are more about my connections than me), I go on and on about Uncle Tiberius, and then me. I can’t help it, I’ve gotten used to it.

 

I guess I’ve always thought that maybe intimidating people by making them think I’m brave and willing to do anything rather than being mean somehow turned into making me horrid _and_ mean. And I have none of the good Gryffindor traits. There’s no one that I would sacrifice myself for, because I really don’t have anyone to care for like that. But good old fabulous Harry Potter would pitch himself off of a bridge just to save a stranger… Oh Godric, I sound exactly like Draco Malfoy, what is happening?

 

I talk more about myself, and I try to flirt with Hermione. She just rolls her eyes and focuses on Professor Slughorn.

 

**Method 2 - Attempt to be attracted by other girls in room.**

 

**Nope. Other girls in room not attractive.**

 

 

The dinner goes by without a hitch after Ginny Weasley enters late. I wonder why she’s here. But before I go on the _what’s so special about her?_ road I bring my new mantra to mind _kinder Cormac_. I’m doomed if me becoming a better person is based simply on idiot mantras of no more than two words.

 

 

**Method 3 - Do not let gaze drift to Harry (only attractive male in room) for at least next half hour.**

 

**Too late.**

 

**Start again.**

 

**Nope.**

 

***scratch out method 3***

 

 

 

**Method 4 - Gaze drift is fine, no staring at Harry.**

 

**Screw anything to do with Harry.**

 

 

**Method 5 - Try to be entranced by Hermione once more.**

 

**Just let this stupid Slug Club dinner be over!**

 

 

*

 

Studying is a completely rare thing for me to use my time for. The library’s nearly empty, except Neville Longbottom, who I’d slap myself for saying has actually grown into himself and become a rather strapping young man. It only took _sixteen whole years_. He’s tall, taller than most of the other boys in our two different years. And where he used to be chubby and none of his characteristics worked for him, he’s now competition with any other handsome boy at this school.

 

His nose is stuck in a book (presumably about herbology, don’t know much about him but I do know that he has an aptitude for it thanks to Professor Sprout mentioning it all the bloody time), and his eyebrows are furrowed together in confusion. His nose is dotted in freckles that probably used to look gaudy on him, but are now cute. He probably hates me as much as Harry Potter and Ron Weasley combined.

 

When Neville looks at his watch, then stands and gathers his things a few minutes later, I realize that I’ve been staring. If it _has_ to be boys… Of all the boys, Neville Longbottom? Strange.

 

Well, it’s not like any of my other ideas have worked. Maybe it’s about time to take old Uncle Tiberius’s advice.

 

There he is, standing on his toes to try and get the book up on the shelf where he found it, I almost wonder why he doesn’t have his wand. I always bring mine mostly everywhere, especially nowadays with all the rumblings of war.

 

I stare more as he struggles, trying to push it up. This is my chance to let all of these thoughts fall behind me. I stand, and march up to him, then slide my way right up close and point my wand at the heavy red book. And then before Neville can either say ‘thanks’ or ‘I didn’t need your help McLaggen’ I slam my wand down onto the shelf, grab his face, and press my lips to his with power and intent.

 

My eyes are shut tight with intensity, but I’m positive that Neville’s are wide open with surprise. He tries to pull away, but I just hang on tighter. He pulls away more, and then at the realization that I’m stronger, he bites down hard on my lip, causing me to break away and touch my fingers to my lip in pain.

 

“Prat,” Neville says quietly but angrily, then slams my shoulder back into the bookcase before stomping away angrily.

 

That went w-… Bad. That went bad.

 

 

*

 

 

An entire month passes, it’s now November. Neville’s shifted from downright ignoring me, to glaring at me, and pretending like nothing happened, as if he can’t decide which one will fuel his hatred for me more.

 

I’ve always worshipped my Uncle Tiberius and yet _now because of him and his stupid advice_ I just think of Neville _more_. It takes seventeen years to find out that you’re uncle is an idiot who gives the worst advice on the planet, apparently.

 

Now I notice the little things rather than the big picture. I see how Neville’s nose perks up right on the end. Or how he’s got this scar on the right side of his jaw. Maybe how he seems to be left-handed. How he furrows his brows like that night in the library, whenever something’s confusing or he’s trying to concentrate. I try to stop noticing the details but they’re just so interesting.

 

And on top of everything else even though it’s healed and there’s no more dried blood, my lip still hurts. Just some sort of emotional-triggered imagination or something. But now I have this little tiny scar on my bottom lip and whenever I pass a mirror I can’t help but stare intensely at it. What better way is there to make me look even more like a narcissist?

 

No chance with getting him for myself though, as he called me a prat and stomped away after I scrunched his face in two kissing him… Or at least _trying_ to.

 

Until this one night…

 

 

It’s in the library again, late at night, and though for the past month Neville’s been avoiding the library (if it were Hermione she’d never be able to avoid the library just to not have to run into me), now he sits in the same spot as in October, the night he bit my lip.

 

This time I try my best not to stare, to draw attention to myself, or to bother him. And then exactly like last time, at the exact same time, he goes to put his book away. I almost expect it to be as high as the last, but it’s not; it’s on the very bottom shelf. However instead of leaving afterwards, he makes his way towards me. I pretend that I can’t tell it’s him, trying to focus on my studying, but he doesn’t seem to buy it. He wraps his dominant hand around my wrist and tugs me away from my studying, pulling me to the back of library, all the way into the Restricted Section.

 

I try to let him make first moves, but I can’t help myself from asking “how is it that you have a key?”

 

Neville smirks. “Do I look like the kind of person who would do anything bad or pick up a horrid book in here?”

 

I shake my head.

 

“Professor Sprout let me have one to access restricted Herbology books whenever I felt the need to, and obviously she trusts me. Everyone does! Poor little Neville Longbottom, everyone picks on him and he’s just good and nice. Would never dream of doing anything remotely bad.” he whispers, slamming the door behind him. There’s something brain meltingly sexy about this speech of his.

 

And then there’s the warm press of skin that isn’t my own against me, all sloppy and wet and filled with new and exciting sensations, where I stay put not doing anything. It’s the kind of kiss I’d never thought Neville Longbottom could give. But I guess his little rant was more complaint than anything.

 

“Is this bad?” He smirks. “I mean, you’re a total jerk and everyone hates you, especially me, but I can’t stop thinking about that God-awful kiss.” He continues after another sloppy yet disgustingly amazing press of lips.

 

I feel like making out with Neville Longbottom in the Restricted Section of the library is not exactly what Uncle Tiberius had in mind when he said ‘face your thoughts’. I hate myself for everything that’s happening right now, but I’d laugh so hard at his face in this moment, if he were here (which thank Godric he’s not).

 

One of my causal sweaters (the blue one, my favourite) for weekends and evenings in the common room gets pushed off my shoulders before my brain can even process more than the obvious. Without the warmth of the fleece inside the sleeves, goosebumps appear on the entire length of my arms. The zipper knocks onto the library’s wooden floors with a startling noise, but that doesn’t really seem to deter Neville from the task at hand: me.

 

Neville pulls a green wool patterned jumper over his head in between kisses, and takes only three seconds to mess up the hair that takes me a whole hour to tame to perfection. It’s wavy instead of curly now I can just feel it, damp with cold sweat.

 

I take note of how muscular his tight grey fitting t-shirt makes him look, and wonder if it’s just the moonlight or if puberty really does work wonders. What can I say? Though I haven’t noticed him much in the past years, I’ve noticed him enough to realize now that he’s grown into quite a man.

 

His dominance is astounding. He’s never seemed confident before, always shy and sticking in the background. I wouldn’t know anything of his classes, as I’m a year older, but from what I’ve seen that’s what it seems like.

 

Neville shoves me against the window that spills moonlight into the small segregated corner of the library, nudging me to sit on the rather large frame. He gnaws at my jaw and I wrap my arms around his neck, finally deciding to just relax a bit more into this. What’s done is done, not like ceasing to kiss Neville will make what’s already happened any more acceptable. This is just a one time thing anyways, after this I can go back to my normal life.

 

Neville slips into the space between my knees, and presses his hands on them as if trying to push himself up to kiss me more. It kind of reminds me of pushing myself up between the kitchen table and counter as a child and swinging back and forth pretending I could fly, even though it’s a horrible comparison.

 

I press myself towards him as much as he pushes towards me, trying to gain the dominance, but Neville keeps it, and oh is he good at it. His feet thump back down to the floor, so he moves his sweaty palms from my knees to the sides of my face. He bites my bottom lip, but in a sweet way rather than the revolting bite of last time, which almost makes me feel like laughing, but instead I just moan appreciatively into his mouth.

 

Then as soon as it started it’s over, and we walk out of the Restricted Section. After locking up, all that Neville says is “bye!” And then he trots away, picking up his stuff from the table he’d been working at as he leaves.

 

 

Never judging a book by its cover ever again.

 

 

 

*

 

 

It was not, in fact, a one time thing. Free periods, late nights in the library, between classes, weekends; all of my time throughout the month of November seemed to be filled with snogging Neville (when it wasn’t with eating or classes themselves), no strings attached. I guess that really shows how people can sometimes be a lot more deep than they seem. Neville had seemed like a shallow pool of information, nothing mysterious there, but the fact that he has a secretly daring and sexy side makes me wonder what else he could be hiding. Total closet-Gryffindor.

 

Being with Neville just feels real, even if all we’re doing is snogging in broom cupboards and in the Restricted Section.

 

Things seem to slow down however at the end of the month, and even though I’ve let Neville make all of the passes just so that I don’t accidentally push him away, I’m tempted to seek him out when I don’t find myself being pushed into the darkness for a quick snog in a while.

 

But after a bit more in the time that we’re apart, I start to feel even more ashamed of myself than I did before. If I had thoughts about boys, I wasn’t doing anything about them, and that’s better than pursuing the thoughts even if they never go away. And yet I kissed Neville, and now he’s like my father’s favourite fire whiskey: completely and totally addicting.

 

But I want to stop having all of these feelings. Why can’t Katie Bell be addicting? Why can’t Hermione Granger be addicting? Why can’t one of the Patil twins be addicting? I don’t understand it. I want all of this to end, no matter how amazing it feels! I hate this, and I hate myself.

 

And my saving grace comes. Professor Slughorn’s having a Christmas party for Slug-Clubbers past and present, and it’s my last chance at a straight-snag. So I ask Granger if she wants to go with me, and surprisingly she says yes, though I’m expecting that it’s only because she’s trying to make someone jealous or something. I wonder if she still writes to Krum.

 

 

*

 

With no news from Neville (not that I’d call our kind of thing “news”) the date of the party approaches quickly, and before I know it I’m walking down the hall in some of my finest dress robes with Hermione.

 

I’ve told her how stunning she looks, and yet I go back to my old ways and start talking about myself again. Maybe the reason I talk so much about myself is that I’m scared that if I don’t, I’ll say what I really mean.

 

As we walk in, I catch a glimpse of Neville immediately. He’s serving, and I almost feel bad, almost feel as if I should go vomit an entire paragraph of words at Professor Slughorn on Neville’s aptitude for Herbology. But that would look weird, especially since I apparently can’t get out more than a sentence about others.

 

Seeing him, asking people politely if they’d like this or that, I freeze in my tracks and almost feel like running the way Hermione and I came. Neville’s hazel eyes meet mine, and I swear that I can feel my kidneys liquifying. He just smiles at me, and then goes back to offering people food.

 

Hermione and I spend the rest of party mingling, and when we get caught under mistletoe I give it my all to erase Neville. My all turned out to be a bit too much, and Hermione looks as if she will slap me. Instead she just runs away, and I spend the next bit trying to find her.

 

I run into Harry at one point. I ask whether or not he’d seen Hermione, and he says that she’d left a while back. Great, I was too forward and awful, now I can’t imagine what awful things people will think of me.

 

And the next events seem to blur together (funny because I haven’t had a drop to drink), but somehow I find myself in the Room of Requirement where the DA meetings were held last year (only the Room looks really different) snogging Neville.

 

It’s probably the quickest snog I’ve ever had, and all that is clear is me sitting shirtless next to Neville on a couch, him in the jeans and t-shirt he had under his serving clothes, and silence between us besides the heavy breaths we draw.

 

“Why have you been avoiding me!” I pounce as soon as I’ve caught my breath.

 

Neville furrows his brows as if trying to find the answer. It turns out that he’s had it ever since he started avoiding me. “Because there’s an awkward conversation I don’t exactly feel like having with you.” He tells me, grumpy in tone and posture.

 

“Well what exactly is this conversation?” I ask. “Enlighten me.” The sarcasm drips from my mouth. I don’t want to admit it, but I’m angry with him.

 

He doesn’t say anything, and silence settles down after a bit. “I’m tired of all this snogging!” He shouts all of a sudden.

 

I get up, and grab my blazer, button up, and tie, then start to make my way towards the door. “All you had to do was say that.”

 

Neville calls after me. Slightly unexpected. “No, Cormac don’t go.” His voice almost waivers. It’s the first time he hasn’t called me ‘McLaggen’ or said my name with disdain. I turn back around and shrug, then dump the clothes I’m carrying and make my way back towards the couch. I sit.

 

“Okay, please explain because I’m actually particularly dull and am not understanding _any of this_.”

 

“You’re not dull. You’re more intelligent than you believe.” Neville sighs and looks me in the eyes, caressing his thumb over the little scar he made on my lip. If they say a picture is worth a thousand words, an action must be worth a million. He just leans in, without saying anything, and presses the softest and chastest of kisses in the world to my lips. It’s more of a brush than an actually kiss really. It lacks everything from every other snog he’s given me, the hunger, the power, the lustfulness. Our lips part quickly, and Neville just leans back as if to admire his work, like I’m a painting or something.

 

“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking than stop right there. You hate me! These are hate snogs! Surely you wouldn’t want most of our meets to just be cuddles and hand holding whist silence envelopes us because I’m just telling you now that I actually _despise_ talking about myself?”

 

Crimson spreads across Neville’s cheeks. What is happening? Do I want this? Of course I want this! I’ve been trying to trick my brain out of wanting this, feeling bad for wanting this, doing everything in my power not to want this. And yet I ended up wanting it more. Oh yes I want this.

 

Neville looks worried. He nods at my last long question and takes my hand in his, testing the waters. He may want to survive this wave, but I’m throwing myself into the tsunami not caring if I live or die. “Lay down.” I murmur in his ear. Cupping his face in my hands, I lay down next to him, and move his head onto my shoulder. This couch is actually quite roomy, and very comfortable. I wrap my arms around him, closing my eyes and inhaling the scent of pure Neville. How did I get to deserve someone as wonderful as him, when all I’ve done is gone around mucking up people’s lives?

 

I have no clue.

 

“Cormac?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Why did you kiss _me_? Why didn’t you try kissing Harry or something?”

 

I laugh into his hair. “Harry would have snapped my neck like a twig if I tried to kiss him.”

 

Neville chuckles at my joke, but then he leans his head back to look at me in the eyes. “Seriously though.”

 

I almost feel like lying for the first time in years, making up some sort of sappy story about how he just seemed ‘right’. But Neville deserves my honesty more than anyone, so all I say is, “I don’t know. I’m just glad that it was you I kissed.”

 

And he smiles.

 

 

 

*

 

 

“This is weird, are we jumping into this?” Neville asks quickly, sitting next to me in the Room of Requirement and slamming his potions book shut. Snow falls outside the window, and the end of January looms.

 

“I’ve been helping you with theory for the same potion for a week, and you’re just mentioning this now?”

 

“Not the potions, Cormac!” Neville sighs, rubbing his eyes. “This,” he does a bunch of fast chaotic hand gestures in between us. “Us.”

 

“If you don’t want to keep seeing each other, tell me and we’ll stop. If you don’t want this to keep being a secret, tell me and we’ll tell everyone. If you want to talk about something else between,” I repeat his hand gestures “us, then you’re going to have to be more specific.”

 

“No, I do want to keep seeing you. No, I’d like to keep this private for numerous reasons. Not just because everyone thinks that you’re an ass hat. I just mean, I feel like you feel weird about this, and it can’t go anywhere if you do.” He looks tired from all of his explaining.

 

“Okay, Neville I’m going to be honest, and it may sound a bit bad but I swear that most of it is good.” Neville looks unimpressed with this. “I do feel weird about this, but it has nothing to do with you. It’s more me, a bit you but more me. It’s me and the fact that I hate being sappy, and I feel like sappiness is something that you want from me? And a bit the fact that you’re a boy, but I’m starting to move past that part.”

 

Neville seems to look relieved, but he can be a bit hard to read at times. “I guess that makes perfect sense. You thought I had an expectation and it made you uncomfortable. I don’t expect anything from you, except working on being a better person.”

 

“Nothing with the part about you being a boy?”

 

“No, because I can’t complain if it makes me uneasy at times as well.” Neville takes a pause. “However, earlier when you were going on about the tell me and we’ll do it, I felt like you didn’t really seem upset to mention the possibility of us not seeing each other anymore, and it bothers me a bit.”

 

“That is understandable. I wasn’t upset because it hasn’t happened. But unless we grow apart, I would be sad if we stopped doing this,” more crazy hand gestures for a laugh.

 

This seems good enough for Neville, and we go back to looking through the 6th year potions text book so that I can help him out.

 

 

*

 

The days roll by quicker now that the end of the year is approaching. March is upon us, Neville about to leave for March Break with his grandmother, me to go home and hunt with Uncle Tiberius.

 

People are starting to wonder what’s happening to me. My friends ask me why I’m so quiet all of a sudden, or why I am suddenly taking an interest in other people’s problems, or perhaps why I don’t seem to have snide comments to make anymore. Whenever I tell this to Neville he smiles and laughs, stroking my jaw and telling me that he too can see it. He won’t admit that he makes me a better person, but I sure will. I tell him when we pass in the halls, I tell him when we kiss, I tell him when we sit not saying anything to one another. “You make me a better person, Neville.”

 

“I don’t make you a better anything,” he always says. “Positive energy and support is what helps people to find the motivation within them to make _themselves_ better. It’s all you love.”

 

The thought that I’m the one who’s made me nice like this makes me want to laugh, but it’s true. I’ve been trying for a long time and I’m finally getting somewhere.

 

_How did this happen?_ I ask myself too often for my own good. However, the night before we leave to go home for a week and a half I stop asking it just long enough to think about now, and Neville.

 

Things started out fast for us, but they never went (and still don’t go) any further than snogging with shirts off. And then they just got slow, but somehow that feels better than doing things too quickly. If things happen rapidly, I feel as if this fragile relationship will break.

 

I really don’t want that to happen.

 

 

*

 

“So, any pretty girls since that, what was her name?”

 

“Clara,” I say flatly. My father tries to keep a conversation with me, but he’s riding ahead of me, so it’s hard. The beauty of the English country side is also grabbing my attention more than my father’s completely unriveting questions. Instead of my usual talkativeness on our horseback riding trips, I’ve been rather quiet. It’s given me the time to stare out a the horizon, surrounded by blooming trees and flowers, and really think. It’s been getting really warm the past few days, and getting warmer by the hour, so I’m wearing summer clothes. I feel like now that we’re enjoying the weather the snow’s going to come falling back down on us tomorrow.

 

“Yes, her. Anyone you’ve given your heart to?”

 

“No, I’m abstaining from women at the moment.” I grumble. Father and Uncle Tiberius laugh heartily, as if I’m a five year old child making jokes that I don’t know are witty again. It’s not even that funny, maybe it’s just my approach to the comment. I retrace my words and believe that it sounded more like a complaint of “oh I’m single my life is awful” rather than a statement. I guess that’s good, I suppose.

 

But all I can think of is Neville, sitting in his yard on a tanning chair reading a herbology book. Wondering what Neville is doing just makes me more impatient to get home and write to him, and also upset that I cannot be there with him.

 

 

The whole ride back to my home I squirm impatiently, and as soon as my horse trots up the drive I dismount, hand her off to one of our house elves, and go running towards the house.

 

I’m up the main staircase and in my bedroom and lightning speed, slamming the door and plopping myself down at my desk. I grab my letter kit viciously and start scrawling nonsense, realizing that I can’t even read a sentence of the jumbled up paragraph. I get a new page and start again.

 

_Dearest Neville,_

 

_Save me from my invasive and annoying family, I hate them all and want to come spend the rest of break with you. Seriously speaking though, I miss you more than I ever thought it was possible to miss someone. Please tell me that you’ll have kisses for me when we see each other again. Will you? I have a least five hundred flying everywhere, trying to find you._

 

_I know I sound like a mad man, I’ve had to redo the letter once already on account of excessive madman-ness. I’m just desperate to have some news from you, because either your owl can’t find me, you haven’t been able to send any letters, or your dead. I hope that it’s one of the first two and not the last one. Please don’t be the last one. Just don’t be dead? Give me some sort of note if you’re not, because I really need to know. Very badly. It’s an emergency._

 

_Anyways I’m still trying to figure out ways to thank Uncle Tiberius for giving me the advice that led me to you, without giving way what exactly his advice did for me. So far I have no ideas. Whatever, Uncle Tiberius doesn’t need thank you’s. He makes at least fourteen galleons an hour, even when he’s on the shitter! And I know that money isn’t everything, but I can’t risk him finding about us and our *crazy hand gestures* this._

 

_I need to be honest and tell you however that I didn’t want to write this letter to you. I just wanted to write you a little note say ‘I miss you and I love you’. But Mother always taught me that it’s polite to write long letters, even if you have nothing to say. I can’t say ‘no’ to her for the life of me._

 

_Anyways, I love you and I miss you. A lot._

 

_Yours with love,_

_Cormac Bloody McLaggen (whom is a better person because of you, and I’m saying it to annoy you)._

 

 

“Cormac! Tea’s ready!”

 

 

*

 

 

_Cor,_

 

_I’m not dead, however I’ve never seen you be so informal in a letter (it’s like you’re talking about a bunch of unnecessary shit again!) I love you and I miss you._

 

_Fuck me, I really really really miss you._

 

_-N.L._

 

 

I clutch one of Neville’s responses to my heart, walking about the train looking for my friends. Just a few Gryffindors, two boys and two girls who make up my close unit of friends. All the ones who’ve been asking what the hell is happening to make me change everything about myself. When the time is right they’ll understand that nothing’s different about me, I’m just showing a better side of me. Even my bad temper’s started to clear up, and I have a lot more patience.

 

When the train starts moving I excuse myself to the washroom and immediately go off to find Neville. When I find his compartment I fake a trip and bump into the glass compartment doors, then with a charming smile apologize and move along. Compartment Four is always empty because of some weird superstition, but neither I nor Neville are very superstitious, so we decided to meet there.

 

It doesn’t take long before Neville shows up. A smile is the first thing I see, and then I gaze up and see his eyes, and smile too.

 

“Hi,” he says closing the door, shutting the blinds and locking the door in one fluid motion.

 

“Hello yourself.” It’s been two weeks of pure agony in being patient for our awaited togetherness, at least it has for me. I’m probably smiling tacky and gaudy and like an idiot, rather than the coy smile I was trying to pull.

 

Neville collapses into the seat beside me, and takes hold of my hand right away as if it was his that I’d stolen.

 

“I’m holding onto this hand until you _have_ to go back. Which won’t be for an hour, and you’ll be telling your friends that you got motion sickness.” Neville declares, rubbing his thumb over the back of my hand.

 

“I, Cormac McLaggen, motion sick? Doubtful.”

 

“Ah, you’re doing it again. Stop pretending that you’re better than everyone else.”

 

“I was kidding.”

 

“Well in that case, I deserve an apology for being mislead. Where are those five hundred kisses you were waiting to give me? I’ll make you count until we get to Hogwarts.”

 

I smirk. “I doesn’t take the whole train ride to give you five hundred kisses.”

 

“Fine,” Neville sets his jaw, scooting closer. “I guess you’ll just have to give five hundred thousand.”

 

“Likely story, but I’ll try my best.”

 

“You better.”

 

“I will. How could I not kiss the person who helped me get through it all?”

 

There’s still so much more to go through, but at least through it all we’ll be together.

 

 

 

 

**Twenty Years Later…**

 

 

 

If there’s something I know about happy moments, it is that they don’t last long. Sometimes you think that all of the darkness and terror in your life is over, and that nothing bad can ever touch you again, but it’s not true.

 

You are most vulnerable when you think that you’re happy.

 

It started like this:

 

Neville and I.

 

And it ended like this:

 

Neville alone, me broken.

 

What happened in between isn’t exactly something that I like talking about. But here goes nothing, since I have nothing left anyway.

 

The first months back from break were the bliss and joy we’d had every since we started seeing each other seriously. They were tenderness, nights studying together and stealing kisses in the hallway whenever possible.

 

And then our headmaster died, and things went dark for everyone. There’s was the funeral, and all of these lies and truths and things that no one needed to know yet _did need to know_ lurking around corners. Everyone was somber. There was no place for romance in this world anymore.

 

Then there’s the summer. It was a summer of constant boredom and constant fear. Nothing much to be said about it. No letters to Neville, no letters from Neville.

 

At the end of summer the dread of going back to Hogwarts settled in. I just needed to stay for a few months, enough to re-learn NEWT key points that I forget over the summer and sit the examinations. Not the whole year, and I’d be with Neville.

 

But Neville didn’t talk to me anymore. There were kisses and words, but they were less frequent and all lies. We were both hurting.

 

Hogwarts was dark, and the new members of faculty gained power through terror and cruelty. It was hard to see Neville hurt, but no matter how hard I tried to stretch my arms I could not reach out to him.

 

The DA formed again, but not as strong. Moral was the lowest it had ever been.

 

Then Neville and I were fighting. Some fights were stupid things, some fights were how I didn’t need to protect him and how he could take care of himself, some fights were about not taking risks, and some fights were about the fact that we were driving each other crazy staying in this twisted relationship.

 

So it ended, over, done. Fin. Those nights in the library, forgotten. That first intense kiss, forgotten. The discussion that led to the sweet relationship between us, forgotten. The relationship itself, mostly forgotten. Not completely, but a lot.

 

Then came the battle of Hogwarts. Fighting, two sides, complete and total chaos. So many lives lost, screaming not to be forgotten. So many lovers and friends torn apart, so many children without parents, so many alumni lost to unforgivables and many other disastrous spells. Siblings left as only children and parents with no children. The best of families torn apart or left behind in the dust. Creatures and Death Eaters and pure-bloods and muggle-borns and half-bloods and spirits and souls.

 

I was not unlucky enough to fall through the wall between life and death. I remained _here_ , but a huge part of me was missing, never to be found again.

 

And Neville found me, told me he was so sorry for everything, and I said that I was sorry too. He told me that everything was going to work out, he whispered sweet things in my ears. I collapsed like a child in his arms, not caring who saw as he shushed me. The Battle brought back our love, made us remember how important to each other we were, and how scared we were to think that the other might be dead.

 

But I would _never_ be the same again. Neville was trying to love a person who wasn’t there any more, and I couldn’t keep on pretending for him. I couldn’t just avoid the fact that every night I would wake up screaming, cold sweat running down my back, thinking that I’d nearly escaped a curse when in reality I was safe in bed with Neville, running his hands through my hair and murmuring reassuring messages in my ears.

 

And sometimes I wouldn’t even get the possibility of sleep for a while. I’d just sit on the balcony of our flat, staring at nothing until the early hours of the morning when Neville would come and drag me back to bed, with a warm cup of milk to gulp down.

 

He tried for as long as he could, and I appreciate that he did. But I was collapsing and Neville was suffocating under me. I know that he felt bad to leave me alone, and that he still might (not that I’m alone anymore), but he was there for me for as long as he could stand and that means so much more than I can describe.

 

Mostly, I pushed him away. I couldn’t bear to see him try and live with my insanity anymore.

 

 

A part of him still loves me, and I can see it in his eyes across the platform as we stare at each other, our children sitting on the train waving to everyone. He raises his hand, and waves. And I do too.

 

 

I told him to go long ago, so he did. There’s nothing to regret, or wish for now. It is no longer his job to pull away my mask, and to discover the evil truths that lie behind every inch of me.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: Does anyone else feel bad that Neville Longbottom had blonde hair in the books, or is that just me? The thoughts I have a one in the morning *sighs*
> 
> After writing this I don’t really think that Cormac’s too too too bad anymore (at least my Cormac isn’t, he’s kind of a sweetie).
> 
> That took a lot of dark and angsty turns and I eventually decided that I’d also enter it into the Take It Seriously Challenge as well as the Random Pairing Challenge (which is the challenge that this story was originally written for). 
> 
> I had no idea this was going to be that long. Here I was thinking “oh I hate Cormac I’m only going to be able to write like a seven hundred word story. And here I end up with (correct me if I’m wrong) the longest one-shot I’ve ever written. Um, okay then???
> 
> But anyways I hope that you enjoyed and that and didn’t think it was too messy of shifty. I started writing this at like eleven pm because I’m an idiot. It’s 6:00 in the morning right now. I regret nothing (okay, I regret a little, but I wouldn’t take this six or so hours back not writing the story and getting sleep instead). 
> 
> Have a lovely day. I’m gonna go sleep now.
> 
> -ImaRavenclaw


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